The Court and the Cross: The Religious Right's Crusade to Reshape the Supreme Court

by Frederick S. Lane

Overview

The Religious Right has dedicated much of the last thirty years to molding the federal judiciary, always with an eye toward casting the Supreme Court in its image. Through broad political work that has involved grassroots campaigns as much as aggressive lobbying, and a welltended career path for conservative law students and attorneys, the Right has been incredibly effective in influencing major Court decisions on everything from laws banning prayer in school to women's secure access to abortion and birth control. How will the courts set in place in recent decades confront stem cell research, gay rights, or euthanasia in a new era? In The Court and the Cross, attorney and legal journalist Frederick Lane draws on legal history and savvy political analysis to expose, in layperson's terms, the Religious Right's unrelenting efforts to declare the United States a Christian nation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807044254
Publisher:	Beacon
Publication date:	06/01/2009
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	5.80(w) x 8.70(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

A graduate of Boston College Law School, Frederick S. Lane is a freelance journalist, lecturer, and expert witness. He has written three previous books on how legal issues affect society, including most recently The Decency Wars. He lives with his family in Burlington, Vermont.

Table of Contents

Introduction: "God Wants Me to Be President" ix

Chapter One Judicial Review: Putting the "Supreme" in Supreme Court 1

Chapter Two "In God We Trust": The Push to Declare America a Christian Nation 25

Chapter Three God's Farm Team: The Growing Evangelical Education System 49

Chapter Four Advice and Consent: The Cross-Examination of Supreme Court Nominees 73

Chapter Five The First Freedom: Separation of Church and State 103

Chapter Six Roy's Rock: The Battle over Public Display of Religious Symbols 127

Chapter Seven Of Pandas and Prayer: Religion in the Public Schools 151

Chapter Eight Cubicle Faith: Religion in the Workplace 173

Chapter Nine The Last Freedom: The Right to Privacy 205

Chapter Ten The Culture of Life: Three Pyrrhic Victories for the Religious Right 229

Conclusion: Requiem for a Court? 253

Editorial Reviews

Separation of church and state is so basic a part of American values and history that it is hard to realize it is under threat. This is a colorful and compelling book.—Anthony Lewis, author of Freedom for the Thought We Hate

"Nowhere has the Religious Right's effort to remake America been more successful, or more poorly understood, than in its campaign to control the courts, a campaign rooted in a revisionist history that seeks to write secularism out of the nation's past. Frederick Lane's illuminating, important The Court and the Cross punctures the movement's canards and deftly explains what's at stake."—Michelle Goldberg, author of Kingdom Coming

"This timely and disturbing book offers a much-needed wake-up call to all who cherish our Constitution and understand that the separation of church and state was America's founding gift to its own citizens and the world." —Susan Jacoby, author of The Age of American Unreason

"If you are not sure that the decisions of the Supreme Court matter much to you in your daily life, read The Court and the Cross and I guarantee you'll be rethinking that position. The Court's erosion of your individual religious freedom and the dictates of your conscience has already begun."—The Reverend Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State and author of Piety & Politics

From the Publisher